Manufacturing Embedded Sensors within Microfluidic Reactors.

合成材料的传统途径是在烧瓶或烧杯中混合化学物质，这些所谓的间歇反应器正逐渐被流动反应器所取代。连续流反应器被证明是合成材料的强大工具，它们提供了降低生产成本，快速优化反应条件的方法，以及减少批次到批次技术产品的变化。然而，对流体反应器内的产品进行不频繁的采样和监测会消除流动过程的任何好处。例如，如果每天对流控芯片的产品进行分析，并且在此期间发生故障，则随着系统重新启动，一天的产品价值将丢失。不频繁的采样周期将流动化学等同于批对批过程，每批中的数量是样品之间的时间长度。因此，实施微反应器系统的挑战在于开发控制和设计策略，以保证均匀的混合和流体行为，并促进对高通量处理的化学产品的在线监测。在定制反应器中嵌入传感器系统是一个尚待研究的领域。新的制造方法提供了潜在的解决方案，包括使用增材制造（AM），或使用各种技术（如光刻与AM相结合）的多级构建，将允许为分析平台的反应和界面设计和优化定制的流动通道。该研究将开发内联流量传感器的制造工艺。这些新型传感器的优势将被应用于纳米材料和药品的生产。

A traditional route to synthesising material was to mix the chemicals within a flask or beaker, these so called batch reactors are increasingly being replaced by flow reactors. Continuous flow reactors are proving powerful tools for synthesizing materials, they offer reduced production costs, a rapid method of optimising the reaction conditions, as well as reducing variation in products from batch-to-batch techniques. Infrequent sampling and monitoring of the products within fluidic reactors however removes any benefit of the flow process. For example if the products of a fluidic chip are analysed every day, and a failure occurs during this period, a days' worth of product are lost as the system is restarted. An infrequent sampling period equates flow chemistry to a batch-to-batch process with the quantity in each batch being the length of time between samples. Thus challenges in implementing micro reactor systems lie in the development of control and design strategies that guarantee uniform mixing, and fluidic behaviour and to facilitate the Inline monitoring of chemical products for high-throughput processing. Embedded sensor systems within bespoke reactors is an under researched field. New methods of manufacturing offer potential solutions, including the use of Additive Manufacturing (AM), or multistage builds using a variety of techniques such as lithography coupled with AM, would allow bespoke flow channels to be designed and optimised for the reaction and interface for the analytical platform. The research will develop the manufacturing process's for inline flow sensors. The benefits of these new sensors will then be applied to the production of nanomaterials and pharmaceuticals.